The Apocalypse Watch

  “Not willingly. I extracted it from him, for I knew the situation. I had to.”

  “Why?”

  “Please, I’m an old man and have very little time. Do not make my life any more complicated than it is.”

  “Let me tell you, Father, your gorilla out there may have my weapon, but my hands are as good as any gun. What the hell did you do?”

  “Listen to me, my son.” Lavolette drank his brandy in two swallows, the tremble in his head returning. “My wife was German. I met her when the Holy See posted me to the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Mannheim after the war. She was married with two children and an abusive husband, a former Wehrmacht officer who ran an insurance company. We fell in love, desperately in love, and I left the Church so we could be together for the rest of our lives. She divorced her husband in a Swiss court, but by German law he kept the children.… They grew up and had children of their own, and then their children began to have children. There are sixteen in the two families that are my dear wife’s bloodline, and she was devoted to them all, as I was to be.”

  “She kept in touch with them, then?”

  “Oh, yes. We had moved to France, where I started my businesses, aided in no small measure by my former colleagues in the services, and as the years went by, the children frequently came to visit us, both here in Paris and during the summers at our house in Nice. I came to love them as my own.”

  “I’m surprised their father even let them see their mother,” said Drew.

  “I don’t think he cared one way or the other, except for the expenses, which I was happy to provide. He remarried and had three more children with his second wife. The first two children, my wife’s, were more an impediment, I believe, reminding him of a meddling priest who had broken his vows and upset a German businessman’s life. A Wehrmacht officer’s life.… Now do you begin to understand?”

  “My God,” whispered Latham, his eyes once again locked with those of Lavolette. “It’s a trade-off. He’s still a Nazi.”

  “Exactly, except that he is no longer a factor, he passed away several years ago. However, he left survivors, tokens readily accepted by the movement.”

  “His own children and their children, perfect inroads to a former priest, once highly regarded and still in the confidence of French intelligence. A trade-off, and I’m the chess piece.”

  “Your life, Mr. Latham, for the lives of sixteen innocent men, women, and children, pawns, indeed, in a deadly game they know nothing about. What would you have done in my place?”

  “Probably what you did,” acknowledged Drew. “Now, what did you do? Whom did you reach?”

  “They could all be killed, you understand that?”

  “Not if it’s done right, and I’ll do my best to do it right. Nobody knows I came here, that’s on your side. Tell me!”

  “There’s a man. I loathe to say it, another clergyman, but not of my Church. A Lutheran minister and rather young, late thirties or early forties, I’d say. He is their leader here in Paris, the main contact to the Nazi hierarchy both in Bonn and Berlin. His name is Reverend Wilhelm Koenig, his place of worship is Neuilly-sur-Seine, it’s the only Lutheran church in the district.”

  “You’ve met him?”

  “Never. When there are papers to be delivered to him, I send a parishioner in the interest of our Christian Alliance Association, either someone very old or very young whose only concern is the francs they make. Naturally, I questioned a few and learned his approximate age and description.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “He’s quite short and very athletic, very muscular. He has a gymnasium, where there are various machines and weights to lift, in the basement of his parish hall. He meets messengers there, without his collar, and always sitting on one of those stationary bicycles, or a torso vehicle, apparently to conceal his lack of height.”

  “You are assuming that, of course.”

  “I worked for French intelligence, monsieur, but I didn’t need its training to learn that. I sent a devout twelve-year-old to deliver a packet to him, and Koenig was so excited, he got off whatever machine he was on, and the boy said to me, ‘I don’t think he’s as big as me, Father, but, my God, he’s all muscle.’ ”

  “He shouldn’t be hard to spot, then,” said Latham, finishing his brandy and getting up from the chair. “Does Koenig have a code name?”

  “Yes, known to no more than five people in all France. It is Heracles, a son of Zeus in Greek mythology.”

  “Thank you, Monsieur Lavolette, and I’ll try to protect your wife’s people in Germany. But as I told someone else tonight, that’s all I can promise. There’s another who comes first.”

  “Go with God, my son. Many think I’ve lost my privilege to say that, but I’m convinced He hasn’t lost faith in me. Sometimes this is a terrible world, and we must all act with the free will He decreed for us.”

  “I’ve got a few problems with that scenario, Father Lavolette, but I won’t burden you with them.”

  “Thank you for not doing so. Hugo will return your weapon and see you out.”

  “I have a last request, if I may?”

  “That depends on what it is, doesn’t it?”

  “A length of cord or wire, ten feet long should be enough.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I just think I should have it.”

  “You field people were always so esoteric.”

  “It goes with the territory,” said Drew quietly. “When we don’t know what’s ahead, we try to imagine the possibilities. There aren’t so many.”

  “Hugo will find you what you need. Tell him to look in the pantry.”

  It was ten past three in the morning when Drew reached the Lutheran parish in Neuilly-sur-Seine. He dismissed the taxi and approached the church, which was attached to a rectory by a short, closed-in colonnade. All was dark, but the clear night sky, illuminated by a bright Paris moon, sharply defined the two separate structures. Latham spent nearly twenty minutes walking around the area, studying each ground floor window and door, focusing on the private quarters of the rectory where the neo leader lived. The church could be broken into easily, but not the private quarters; they were wired to the hilt, metallic alarm strips showing everywhere.

  To trigger the alarm might shock the Nazi, but it would also be the most negative sort of warning. Drew had the address and number of the parish. He pulled the portable phone issued by Witkowski from a jacket pocket, and then his slim notebook from another. He considered his words, read the number, then dialed.

  “Allô, allô!” said the high-pitched male voice on the second ring.

  “I’ll speak English, for I’m a Sonnenkind born and brought up in America—”

  “What?”

  “I flew over for a conference in Berlin and was instructed to contact Heracles before I returned to New York. My plane was delayed by weather or else I would have reached you hours ago, and my flight to the States is in three hours. We must meet. Now.”

  “Berlin … ‘Heracles’ …? Who are you?”

  “I don’t like repeating myself. I am a Sonnenkind, the Führer of the Sonnenkinder in America, and I demand respect from you. I have information you must be given.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Ten meters from your front door.”

  “Mein Gott! I’ve heard nothing of this!”

  “There wasn’t time; the usual channels could not be used, for you’ve been compromised.”

  “I cannot believe this!”

  “Believe, or I’ll use this phone to reach Berlin, even Bonn, and other instructions will be issued that will remove Heracles from his post. Come down and meet me within thirty seconds or I call Berlin.”

  “No! Wait! I’m coming!”

  Well before a minute had passed, the lights on the upper floors were turned on, followed by the lights below. The front door opened and the Reverend Wilhelm Koenig, in pajamas and draped in a blue shawl, appeared. Drew studied hi
m from the shadows of the lawn. He was, indeed, a small man, but with massive shoulders and thick legs, not unlike a bull mastiff, the legs severely bowed. And like a huge bulldog, his large, pinched face was set in defiance, as if prepared to attack.

  Latham walked out of the darkness of the lawn into the light of the entrance. “Please, come here, Heracles. We’ll talk outside.”

  “Why do you not come in? There’s a chill in the air; it’s far more comfortable inside.”

  “I’m not cold at all,” said Drew. “As a matter of fact, it’s rather warm and humid.”

  “Then our air-conditioning would be preferable, would it not?”

  “My instructions were not to have any conversations within your rectory; the assumption was obvious.”

  “That I’d tape whatever we said, incriminating myself?” cried Koenig in a harsh whisper, stepping outside. “Are you verrückt?”

  “Another more reasonable assumption could be made.”

  “Such as?”

  “The house is wired by the French.”

  “Impossible! We have devices perpetually in operation that would reveal any invasion.”

  “New technology is born every day, Reverend. Come on, humor our superiors in Berlin even if they’re wrong. Frankly, we both must.”

  “Very well.” Koenig started to walk down the single porch step, when Drew stopped him.

  “Hold it.”

  “What?”

  “Turn off the lights and close the door. Neither of us wants a cruising police car to stop, do we?”

  “You have a point.”

  “Who else is in the house?”

  “My assistant, whose rooms are in the attic, and my two hounds who remain in the kitchen until I summon them.”

  “Can you turn off the upstairs lights from down there?”

  “The hallway, yes, not the bedroom.”

  “Turn them off too.”

  “You’re excessively cautious, Herr Sonnenkind.”

  “A product of my training, Herr Demeter.”

  The minister went inside; seconds later the main lights, both upstairs and downstairs, were extinguished, when suddenly Koenig shouted, “Hunde! Aufrug!” When the neo leader returned to the darkened doorway, the moonlight revealed two additional figures, one on either side of him. They were low to the ground, large-headed, barrel-chested, and each poised on four slightly bowed legs. The reverend’s dogs were not unlike the reverend himself; they were pit bulls. “These are my friends, Donner and Blitzen; the parishioners’ children like the names. They are completely harmless unless I give them a specific command, which, of course, I cannot repeat because they would tear you to pieces.”

  “Berlin wouldn’t like that.”

  “Then don’t give me any reason to use it,” continued Koenig, walking out on the lawn, his guards waddling beside him. “And please, no comments about owners looking like their pets, or vice versa. I hear that all the time.”

  “I can’t imagine why. You’re somewhat taller.”

  “You’re not amusing, Sonnenkind,” said the Nazi, looking up at Drew and throwing his wide blue shawl over his shoulder, concealing his left hand. It was not difficult to know what Koenig held under the cloth. “What is this information from Berlin? I’ll reconfirm it, of course.”

  “Not from this house, you won’t,” contradicted Latham firmly. “Go down the street, or even better, into another district, and call all you want to, but not from here. You’re in enough trouble, don’t compound it. That’s a bit of friendly advice.”

  “They’re serious, then? They believe that with all of my precautions, I am compromised?”

  “They certainly do, Heracles.”

  “On what basis?”

  “First, they want to know if you have the woman.”

  “De Vries?”

  “I think that was the name, I’m not sure; the connection was terrible. I’m to reach Berlin within the hour.”

  “How would they even know about her? We haven’t filed our report! We’re waiting for results.”

  “I assume they have moles in French intelligence, the Sûreté, organizations like that.… Look, Koenig, I don’t care to know anything that’s not in my orbit, I have enough problems of my own back in the States. Just give me the answers I can relay to our superiors. Have you got whoever this woman is?”

  “Of course we do.”

  “You haven’t killed her.” A statement, not a question.

  “Not yet. In a few hours we will if she doesn’t produce results. We’ll drop her body off at the steps of the American Embassy.”

  “What results? And don’t give me a bunch of complicated facts—just sketch it out so they’ll be satisfied. Believe me, it’s in your interest.”

  “All right. At the first light our unit will reach her lover, this Latham, telling him that if he ever wants to see her alive, he’ll come to a rendezvous, a park or a monument, someplace where several of our expert snipers can conceal themselves. When he arrives, a barrage of gunfire will kill them both.”

  “Where is this rendezvous?”

  “That’s the unit’s decision, not mine. I have no idea.”

  “Where is she being held now?”

  “Why would that concern Berlin?” The neo-Nazi suddenly squinted, staring questioningly at Drew. “They’ve never wanted such tactical information before.”

  “How the hell do I know?” At the raising of his voice, the deadly pit bulls growled. “I’m simply repeating what they told me to ask!” Latham, in his anxiety, could feel the perspiration rolling down his face. Control, goddammit, control! Only a few more moments!

  “All right. Why not?” said the short pit bull on two legs. “What’s in motion can’t be derailed by men who are five hundred miles away. She’s in a flat on the rue Lacoste, number twenty-three.”

  “What flat?”

  “The unit never told me. It was for rent and they don’t even have a telephone. Naturally, by this morning they’ll disappear, and a landlord will have several months’ rent and no tenants.”

  Step one, thought Drew. Step two was to get rid of the goddamn dogs and have Koenig to himself. “That seems to me all that Berlin can demand,” he said.

  “Now, what is the information I’m to be given,” asked the Lutheran neo.

  “Orders more than information,” said Latham. “You’re to temporarily close down all activities, neither issuing nor accepting instructions from anyone. When the time is right, Berlin will reach you and tell you to resume operations. Furthermore, should you care to confirm your orders from me, do so at the lowest levels, preferably through Spain or Portugal.”

  “This is insane!” choked the diminutive prelate as the two dogs growled and snapped their teeth simultaneously. “Halten!” he yelled, quieting the animals. “I am the most secure man in France!”

  “They told me to tell you that’s what someone called André thought, and now he’s finished.”

  “André?”

  “You heard me—and I don’t know who he is or what it means.”

  “Mein Gott. André!” The Nazi’s voice grew weak, confusion and fear in his expression. “He was so getarnt!”

  “Sorry, I’m not with you, the cells in America don’t want all of us to know German. They figured it was a trip point.”

  “He was beyond unearthing.”

  “I guess he wasn’t. Berlin said something about his going back to Strasbourg, wherever the hell that is.”

  “Strasbourg? Then you know.”

  “Not a damn thing, and I don’t want to. I just want to get to Heathrow and a plane to Chicago.”

  “What am I to do?”

  “I told you before, Heracles. In the morning you call your relays in Spain or Portugal—from a phone far away from here—confirm my orders, and do as Berlin says. How much clearer can I be?”

  “Everything is so confusing—”

  “Confusing, hell,” said Latham, starting to take Koenig’s elbow, when the pit bulls snarled
. “Come on, tell your hounds to get inside and I’ll follow you. If nothing else, you owe me a drink.”

  “Oh, certainly.… Rein,” ordered Koenig as the two pit bulls raced through the open door. “There we are, Herr Sonnenkind, come inside.”

  “Not yet,” said Drew, suddenly slamming the door closed and yanking the neo outside, stripping the blue shawl off his shoulders, revealing the small automatic in his left hand. Before the confused Koenig could react, Latham gripped the weapon, twisting it violently counter-clockwise, expecting either the Nazi’s wrist to snap or the gun to fall free; it loosened as Koenig’s fingers spread in agony. Drew grabbed it and flung it into the dark grass.

  What followed was nothing short of a life-and-death struggle between two human animals, pit bulls, perhaps, each possessing an agenda that consumed him, one ideological, the other intensely personal. Koenig was a hissing, attacking cat, thrusts and claws deadly; Latham was the larger, snarling wolf, fangs bared, constantly lunging for the throat—in the present case, any appendage he could grab on to, hold, and immobilize. In the end, the wolf’s size and marginally superior strength prevailed. Both animals, bloodied and exhausted, knew who had won the battle. Koenig lay on the ground, one arm broken, the other sprained, the thigh muscles of both legs partially paralyzed. Latham, his hands scraped and bleeding, his chest and stomach pummeled almost to the point of his vomiting, stood over the Nazi and spat in the direction of his face.

  Drew knelt down, pulling the length of coiled cord provided by Hugo out of his belt, and proceeded to tie up the neo leader, legs and arms connected behind Koenig’s spine; with each struggle the lines grew tighter. Finally, Latham tore the blue shawl in strips, as he had done with the sheets at the Normandie hotel, and gagged the ersatz minister of God. Glancing at his watch, he dragged Koenig into the bushes, chopped him into unconsciousness, yanked out his telephone, and dialed Stanley Witkowski.

  32

  “You son of a bitch!” roared the colonel. “Moreau wants your ass in front of a firing squad, and I can’t say as I blame him one bit!”

  “His two men got loose, then?”

  “What did you think you were doing? What are you doing?”